Ape Escape 2: Stage 22: True Final Showdown with Specter & Final Ending with a Very Special Guest!

Just like in the first Ape Escape game, after you've captured every single monkey in the game, you return to your base to find out that Natalie and the Professor have finally located Specter again. After his defeat at his Moon Base, he relocated to a different area located on the dark side of the moon. You can go there whenever you're ready.

Jimmy calls out to Specter, believing that he can't beat him now that he's the last ape standing. Specter believes this as a claim that only weak humans would say, but Jimmy replies in that how we, as humans, will always depend on someone to help us through our lives, and this also includes the monkeys.

That last little remark about the monkeys ticked Specter off, as he still sees that apes are still superior to humans. He'll at least give up his evil ways if Jimmy is strong enough to defeat and capture him.

"I'M GONNA SPANK YOU, MONKEY!"
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I get wrecked and lose a life before I actually beat Specter, here, but I wanted to keep that in this time because I could at least show you some do's and don'ts.

If Specter is in his flying chair, and he rains fire on you, he'll then float in front of his ship. Hit the button to launch the ship and toss him out of his chair to your place. Then chase after him, preferably with the Super Hoop as he runs pretty fast.

If you wait too long, he'll put up a shield and charge at you. Try using the Sky Flyer to jump over the charge. He may also throw a block at you from the ground.

If he attacks you with blue rings from his chair, stand in place and CAREFULLY jump over them as they close themselves on you. Then you can hit him out of his chair again and give chase to him again. Both of his "sitting in chair" attacks can lead to this chase until you eventually destroy the chair itself after Specter takes enough damage.

For his second and final phase, he'll use more of his ground attacks, such as blasting you with blue energy, creating duplicates of himself, and using more of his charge attack. If you jump over the charge, he'll crash into a wall and stun himself.

If you can damage him enough from there, preferably with the Magic Punch, you'll put him down for good.

So, now, arm yourself with the Monkey Net one last time... and CATCH! SPECTER!!!
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You think catching Specter again feels pretty satisfying? Wait until you see what happens in the following cutscene!

As soon as Jimmy catches Specter, Natalie and the Professor find this out. So to celebrate, the two invited a guest and old friend to celebrate Jimmy's grand victory, as well as giving him a reunion...

And who was this special guest? It was none other than Jimmy's cousin and the hero of the original Ape Escape: SPIKE!

Apparently, Spike may have known about Jimmy's adventure this whole time, and likely left him to do his business while Spike may have been taking a vacation after having gone through his own Specter-related adventure through time.

Jimmy, with Pipochi at his side, eventually returns from his moon trip to see his friends and his cousin, but not before getting themselves dirty and crashing Specter's ship into the Professor's poor lab, destroying it all over again. Oh well...

THE END
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So after the credits, save your game and you can learn one last secret: You can actually play as Spike in Ape Escape 2 by holding L1 while starting a new game. Spike even replaces Jimmy in the title screen right afterwards, but only until you reset the game.

Spike's campaign is a New Game+ of Jimmy's where you start off at the very beginning of the game with every Gadget in the game, including the Magic Punch and the See-All Scope to use alongside it. You can also transform your Monkey Net into an on-land Water Net by highlighting the net on the Gadget Screen, then pressing the R1 button to change it. This is better than the normal net because you can just shoot at the apes to catch them.

The downside is that Pipochi won't be with you while you're Spike, so those last-ditch efforts to catch a ledge won't happen. Spike also sadly doesn't get to talk to any of the other characters, and as such, every cutscene in the game is removed, and all of the game's hint phones are gone (except for the ones in Gadget Training, which will still refer to Jimmy).

Maybe later on I'll conjure a quick comparison video between Spike and Jimmy, if not outright make a full Spike playthrough, but I've reached some much-needed closure with this game and I'm ready to move on.
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I have no idea when I'll make an Ape Escape 3 playthrough, as that's the only game of the trio that I have yet to actually play through.

But in the meantime, thanks for watching and stay tuned for more content!